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Christmas in France is a major annual celebration, as in most countries of the Christian world. Christmas is celebrated as a public holiday in France on December 25, concurring alongside other countries. Public life on Christmas Day is generally quiet. Post offices, banks, stores, restaurants, cafés and other businesses are closed. Many people ...
Père Noël is sometimes confused with another, older character. In Eastern France (Alsace and Lorraine regions), in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Germany, in Switzerland and in Eastern Europe (and nowadays also in the eastern states of the US) there is a parallel tradition to celebrate Saint Nicolas or Sinterklaas on December 5 or
Neapolitan presepio at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London, it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be "decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green". [4]
Beyond the familiar traditions like Santa Claus, a fir tree, caroling and gift-giving, a number of countries—including the U.S.—bring their own unique twists, both old and new, to the holiday.
The term is first documented in 18th-century France, [4] and was used by the French as a name for the night-long party dinners held by the nobility. [5] Eventually the word began to be used by other courts (amongst them the Portuguese courts) and after the French Revolution it was adopted as a definition of the New Year's Eve.
Girls typically receive more education than boys, and only a minority of children pursue higher education. [25] In contemporary times, women have largely assumed paid employment, [49] and the traditional division of labor has gradually eroded since the 1970s. [25] The concept of land ownership is pervasive, extending even to urban areas. [49]
Because Noel is derived from the Latin word natalis meaning "birth," it is also a popular baby name. The name has been popular for both boys and girls since the beginning of the 19th century.
The mythologies in present-day France encompass the mythology of the Gauls, Franks, Normans, Bretons, and other peoples living in France, those ancient stories about divine or heroic beings that these particular cultures believed to be true and that often use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity.